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Post by wolfchild on Dec 10, 2017 1:02:56 GMT
Hey folks, just wondering what your thoughts are on bringing or expecting players to prepare 2 lists to a friendly, non-event gaming group.
Do u think we should always play with 2 lists or is it just something for tournaments/tournament prep?
Is 2 list play a core part of the game?
When would you avoid 2 list play and how would you change it?
I personally don’t enter competitive events, but enjoy WM/H in my gaming club and w friends.
One of those friends does play events and has encouraged us all to play Death clock (which we’d started using at the end of Mk2, then had a long hiatus w Mk3 so it got dropped til we’re upto speed again) and now he’s encouraging us all to have 2 lists, “otherwise you’re missing out on a core part of the game”.
Thoughts and supported opinions please
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Post by welshhoppo on Dec 10, 2017 3:11:23 GMT
We always play 2 lists. Unless we've agreed to having a certain list face another list. List chicken plays an important part of warmachine. So we play along with it.
Sometimes we play on clock, but only when we are prepping for a tourney.
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princeraven
Junior Strategist
Shredder spam is best spam
Posts: 256
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Post by princeraven on Dec 10, 2017 3:12:58 GMT
There really isn't a right or wrong way to play the game.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Dec 10, 2017 4:15:55 GMT
Hey folks, just wondering what your thoughts are on bringing or expecting players to prepare 2 lists to a friendly, non-event gaming group. Do u think we should always play with 2 lists or is it just something for tournaments/tournament prep? There are 2 reasons why you should have 2 lists ready for when you go to game at the FLGS: 1) Tournaments / tournament prep 2) You want to have more than 1 option for your friendly game, yet can't manage to bring 3 or more lists. Realistically, all of the discussion you see regarding 2 lists selection, etc. is all about preparing for tournaments and competitive play under the Steam Roller tournament format. No, absolutely not. That notion is complete and utter crap. It is a core part of the Steam Roller tournament format, but you will never see it as a requirement of the Prime / Primal rules. Something to keep in mind is that Steam Roller is not a part of the game, they are the rules that govern how tournaments are run. The "competitive gamers" typically (but not always) are always preparing for tournaments and, as far as they are concerned, carry the false notion that Steam Roller is a core part of the rules. The "casual gamers" will bring however many lists they like to the FLGS and play whatever scenario (or no scenario at all) that strikes their fancy. Avoid? At any time you please. Maybe a better answer would be: when it stops being fun. Don't let you and your casual gaming friends get sucked into 2 list play and the other aspects of competitive play unless you want to. Within the last couple of days I have just heard some disappointing news, and I think it can serve as an example of what could happen. I went to my FLGS to check on an order I had placed. While I was there I ran into a guy I recognized as one of the Thursday night regulars. Nice guy, had some goofy thoughts on how to run Legion, but a pretty good guy. I hadn't been to a Thursday night game with that group for a very long time due to work and illness, so I asked him how things were going. He told me that he had quit the game for a long time because he got tired of playing against the competitive gamers, with their never-changing 2 lists that were finely tuned to stomp the crap out of other armies. He said he tried competing with them but found the high-pressure competitiveness of those games were not fun for him. He then said he stopped in on a Thursday recently (out of morbid curiosity?) and said that there were only half of the normal players - the group was down to the competitive gamers only. All of the "casual gamers" had effectively been run off because gaming there on Thursday nights was no longer fun. I suggested that he try Company of Iron (he had no clue what that was) as an alternative and showed him the boxed set. That one friend who has encouraged you guys to adopt Death Clock and is pushing for everyone to have 2 lists sounds like he is trying to nudge a casual gaming group towards being a competitive gaming group. I suggest that your group sits down, as a group, and has a discussion about what you want to do. If everyone wants to stay casual or go competitive, then act accordingly. If some want to play casually and some want to go competitive then adopt some ground rules about being a hybrid group. (no pressuring other players, no whining, be nice, everyone must have fun, 2 lists are not required, Death Clock & Steam Roller scenarios are optional, etc.) Just remember this: Warmachine, Hordes, and Company of Iron are games. Yes, we all try to win the game when we play, but the true purpose of playing the game is to have fun. If you like white-knuckled competitive contests with finely honed army lists, then go ahead and declare Steam Roller to be an addition to the New Testament and have a great time climbing the brackets to tournament victory. If you like relaxed games where play whatever strikes your fancy, then declare that you "don't need no stinkin' badges!" and carry on. You make sure that you, and all of your friends, play the game the way that you like, have fun, and don't let someone tell you otherwise. |
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Post by oncomingstorm on Dec 10, 2017 5:37:29 GMT
So...quick disclaimer. My meta is very competitive. Most of the people in it travel for tournaments, and we have one of the Canadian WTC players as a regular (as in, regularly kicks the crap out of us...lol). So we pretty much exclusively play steamroller, 2-list format, tournament tier-lists (though in non-tournament games, there's a lot more latitude for redoing missed activations, triggers, etc).
That's...a little more competitive than I would like, personally. Sometimes you want to get a handle on a new list without having to run it up against whatever meta-defining bullshit currently exists on your first playthrough. And getting into a list chicken scenario in a casual game isn't a ton of fun for either player.
That being said, the game isn't balanced, and it's certainly not balanced for a one-list take-all-comers format. There ARE rock-paper-scissors matchups in the game, and especially in a gaming group where you don't necessarily know your opponents that well, there's a real risk of the 'bring one list' approach will result in a one-sided game. This is ameliorated somewhat if players are all playing fairly casual lists, but unless that's an explicit (and I mean explicit, warmachine is not at heart a casual game) expectation in your gaming group, you're going to run into cases where one player stomps another due to different expectations as to the game they're playing. Two lists formats help with that (even if they don't completely alleviate the power level issue).
Personally, I don't see warmachine as a casual game. It's complex, precise, and there's enough variability in power level that trying to play an unoptimized list into an optimized list is simply not fun. Trying to put constraints on that in an informal gaming setting (again, particularly where people don't know each other very well) just leads down a rabbit hole of ill-defined conceptions of what is and is not 'OP' (ie. pretty much the GW community, back when I played). People have different ideas about where the power level for the meta should be set (and too often, that bar is 'somewhere just below the level I play at'). They have different ideas about what does and doesn't cross the line (If I play a lot of Circle warpwolves, maybe I think gunlines are OP. If I play Cygnar, maybe I think that a Skorne Cetrati brick is the most OP thing ever to exist.) Trying to police something that subjectivity is an exercise in frustration.
Personally, I like the two-list format. I like deathclock. I like playing lists that, even if they aren't 'top of the meta' can play into lists that are. Where I think the tournament mentality should break down is when list selection happens - unless one player wants to play an uphill matchup, both players should look at each others' lists, decide which lists will create the most interesting/closest game, and play that game. You don't learn a ton by playing an extremely tilted matchup, after all.
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bward
Junior Strategist
Posts: 184 
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Post by bward on Dec 10, 2017 6:43:03 GMT
An important note on death clock I think—
Our meta always plays with a chess clock, but only so you can recognize how long you are taking relative to your opponent. If someone clocks we still play the game out, but it just helps prevent the analysis paralysis and also helps you play and schedule more games in one night.
As far as 2 lists, we also always play 2 lists but you are never “forced” to bring 2... bring 1 for all we care, but it is more protection for you to not get put into a matchup where you get crushed and suffer a npe.
Normally we talk out the match up “normally if you bring legion I have to drop x” “yeah and if you brought Arcane shield I just need to drop y” and we work out the match up together.
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Post by killroundears on Dec 10, 2017 8:00:02 GMT
the way we do it in my meta is 2 list as the standard. Less competitive setting is to talk it over and figure out the match up thats most fun for both sides. the other option is to just slam down each of your lists and see who won list chicken. i certainly prefer the talking it over method. For all this games focus on competitive play and tournaments, only a small, tiny fraction of players are serious tournament players who go to the big, main events. I have seen the very effect Blargaliscious described. It nearly killed my meta at one point. There's only a small core of players left and many of them are competitive to a fault. Just recently on a day i wasn't present we had a new player come in who was playing a battlebox. one of the other players came over and agreed to play the 0pt game, but dropped Goreshade1 and just crushed this new player twice in a row with the feat, and lamentation + hex blast making spell casting mostly pointless. Made me very annoyed to hear about it. Big scumbag move to be doing that to a new player. But that's the kind of 'culture' warmahordes has cultivated really |
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Cyel
Junior Strategist
Posts: 685
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Post by Cyel on Dec 10, 2017 8:51:30 GMT
That being said, the game isn't balanced, and it's certainly not balanced for a one-list take-all-comers format. There ARE rock-paper-scissors matchups in the game, and especially in a gaming group where you don't necessarily know your opponents that well, there's a real risk of the 'bring one list' approach will result in a one-sided game. This. Two-list format just leads to better gaming experience for both sides by limiting the chance of the game being one-sided due to bad match-up. It absolutely isn't necessary to play the game, and shouldn't be forced as such. It just makes the experience better IMO and I recommend it. |
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Post by GumbaFish on Dec 10, 2017 13:29:27 GMT
We usually bring multiple lists and chat about if either of us really wants to play or play against something specific. I don't like bringing one list because it might result in an unenjoyable experience for myself or my opponent so having another option helps that.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 10, 2017 14:59:05 GMT
Blargaliscious - Great post, 100% agree with everything you wrote. It's important that groups talk relatively often about what the group, writ large, is looking for. Often people within the group have somewhat differing opinions between all competitive, all casual or a mix (my experience tends to be its usually either or, with community building like minded people acting as bridge to encourage the "mix" style. My experience is also that when a group is less organized it tends to be more likely to be "either/or"). Unfortunately, loosely organized, decentralized groups probably have the most difficulty doing this and suffer the largest threat from community bleed. Anywho, excellent points. I'd also add that its OK to let your gaming tastes change, despite how difficult that can be. I'll use myself: i was once upon a time an insanely competitive player. Over time that's cooled where i'm actually more interested in campaign-skirmish games at the moment (essentially necromunda-esques). It will probably vacillate back if a game i play puts out a competitive format that i think is both fair and fun. Sometimes competitives burn out a little and need to just turn off competitive mode. Sometimes casuals are up for an event style experience. Where things go off the rails is when you have a group with different interests that de facto caters to only one or the other.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Dec 10, 2017 15:16:26 GMT
Whether you're competitive or casual, I do believe WM/H really does work better with a 2-list format.
The undeniable fact is that WM/H leans pretty hard into the synergistic army list style of gaming, which often produces strong skew lists. Without the 2-list format, you run a high risk of walking into a bad counter that makes one (or sometimes even both) players have a bad time playing the game. The 2-list format doesn't completely prevent this, but it lowers the odds of it happening considerably.
As for clocks, if you're not doing tournament prep I cannot think of a good reason to use a clock. Even if you're doing tournament prep and playing with a clock, I recommend just noting the fall of a death-clock and playing on - clock is a silly way to end a game if you're not using it to control timing for an event (take with a grain of salt - it seems people who have grown up on American sports, ie Americans and Canadians, don't have any issue with this at all).
-und_ed
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Post by macdaddy on Dec 10, 2017 18:39:12 GMT
undedI actually hate winning or losing via deathclock  Losing or winning solely because you ran out of time is so unsatisfying haha I think a lot of the responses here are spot on. Particularly Blargs. It’s a game (a fairly expensive one) play what you have fun playing! It’s all about your experience and making a great community. My favorite gaming community was down in Lynchburg. A bunch of guys just playing for fun trying to learn the game and meet people. I made some great friends and it really got me full on hooked in this game. That’s what these things are about for me. Memories, experiences, and just doing something you enjoy! I recommend bringing more than one list (2 is not a max number you can bring by any means) For the same reasons stated above. Bad match ups can be really educational, but can also be an NPE. Believe it or not one of the biggest turn offs for 40K in my local meta was that games never felt laid back enough. (Well that and I found 40K to be very boring) The lists are always super fine tuned and balance is so horrible in the game it’s really hard to get good match ups without bringing your best list...and even then. IME warmachine has been more laid back. You can play an outside the box list and still have a good time. You can make little mistakes casually and rectify them as they are more glaringly obvious than in other game systems since positioning is such a huge deal. You can also always try company of iron. I find that to be a very laid back and fun experience and it has a low investment for start up!
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Dec 10, 2017 21:59:26 GMT
While i love old school hardcore, i will (reluctantly!) agree that at this point in the evolution of WM/H, a two list system is basically required. There's just too many situations where 1 v. 1 list scenario can end up being a shitty matchup to make uni-list formats viable without some sort of restriction. I don't believe in hard counters (or, rather, i think there's far fewer true ones than groupthink would infer), but there's enough rough 1 vs. 1 scenarios where having a two lists system is advantageous.
That said, while i love timed turns, holy christ on a candlestick do i absolutely loathe deathclock. Like with a passion hate that mechanic. Not only does it basically compel adding in another peripheral into playing warmachine (some people go absolutely apeshit on the game-aid bric-a-brac), but its the source of more (and imho, often needless) complexity into the turn infrastructure. While I know its meant to solve several issues with game turn infrastructure both at the turn and event level, I personally don't think what it solves is worth what it creates.
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unded
Junior Strategist
Posts: 760
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Post by unded on Dec 10, 2017 22:12:39 GMT
That said, while i love timed turns, holy christ on a candlestick do i absolutely loathe deathclock. Like with a passion hate that mechanic. Not only does it basically compel adding in another peripheral into playing warmachine (some people go absolutely apeshit on the game-aid bric-a-brac), but its the source of more (and imho, often needless) complexity into the turn infrastructure. While I know its meant to solve several issues with game turn infrastructure both at the turn and event level, I personally don't think what it solves is worth what it creates. Hehe. I feel exactly that way about timed turns. At least in death clock I can take some quick turns to make up for a long turn, but timed turns just screws you over just when you need it the most. That mechanic needs to die in the most painful of fires. That being said I like the principle of timing for tournaments. It's a damned sight better than old school Warhammer events where a primarily ranged player could take his sweet time and win the game because you only played 4 turns out of a 6-turn game (in which the close-combat army only starts to claw its way back from turn #4 onwards). Clocks really do solve problems like that very neatly. I just don't see them as essential or even necessary for non-tournament play. (well, most of the time, anyway. I have one mate who plays so damned slowly in every system that our group have started putting a clock on him just so we can finish a game in an evening) -und_ed |
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on Dec 10, 2017 22:21:02 GMT
Not all of us have an option. In my club, heck, I dare to say the whole country, two list, sr, deathclock is the standard. Deathclock is not always the case simply due to people not having it with them, or some random reason, but I don't remember playing a non-SR game.. umm.. ever?
I might be inaccurate with the country thing, but my gut feeling is that is not far from the truth.
I don't mind it actually. I just personally prefer to play with painted models and hate to carry a ton of minis around so I'm often with "what is painted and fits my bag". I sadly can't say some of my losses aren't because of that. The game has gone pretty tight (or my meta?), but there are uphill and downhill games much much more than I'd like.
Sure, good players can win with a bad list, but I'm not a good player so could be fun to have even odds occasionally. Few days ago was one of the worst examples - my list absolutely destroyed a far better player's list without him having much chance for the one time we both brought one list randomly. I actually don't think I've won him before.. this time, I literally had to do next to nothing and it wasn't even close. I wasn't even happy. It was just all kinds of anticlimatic.
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Losing or winning solely because you ran out of time is so unsatisfying haha